Left uses Rupert Murdoch to combat media consolidation

Long the scourge of liberals, Rupert Murdoch is emerging as the boogeyman in a fight over federal regulators’ attempts to rewrite the rules on who can own TV and radio stations and newspapers — and where.

While Murdoch hasn’t announced his plans, reports that the media mogul is eyeing The Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune are giving leverage to traditionally liberal groups that want to ensure the FCC doesn’t ease regulations preventing too much media consolidation in major markets.

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“It’s been widely reported that he’s shown interest in these two papers,” said Free Press Legislative Director Joel Kelsey. “I don’t know if he does buy them or not. I just know the ban in place now would prevent him from doing it, and the one the FCC is considering putting in place would allow him to.”

Democratic FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski is circulating a proposal among his colleagues that would ease the media ownership restrictions. While the proposed order hasn’t been made public yet, officials there say it would leave the bulk of the rules developed by the last GOP chairman, Kevin Martin, mostly intact.

That proposal eased the outright ban that currently exists on owners of TV stations in a top market buying a newspaper in the same city. FCC officials say they have tweaked the Martin-era rules, making it more difficult for a company that owns one of the top four TV stations in a market to buy a newspaper in the same city.

“The order would strengthen the current rule by creating an express presumption against a waiver of the cross-ownership ban to allow such a combination,” FCC Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake said in a statement.

Whether or not Murdoch makes a play for another pair of powerful news outlets to add to his portfolio, which includes The Wall Street Journal and Fox News, among other outlets, the larger point remains the same, Kelsey argues.

“There’s a political point as much as it is a substantive point,” Kelsey explained. “We just don’t believe that fewer diverse sources of news in this nation, whether it's newspapers or broadcast stations, just isn’t in the public interest.”

NewsCorp officials declined to speak on the record, but one executive told POLITICO that opponents of relaxing the rules are fear mongering, by putting the focus on Murdoch’s empire. NewsCorp has proposed splitting into two separate publicly traded companies.

“That is hilarious,” the executive said. “We don’t own a TV station in those markets that isn’t in the top four. The waiver standard has zero applicability to us. It’s absolutely ridiculous and misleading.”

NewsCorp is a vocal advocate for easing the ownership rules, arguing that easing the regulations will give the struggling newspaper business a shot in the arm.

While NewsCorp contends that its stations are outside the top four in Los Angeles and Chicago, it’s unclear whether that is always the case. Nielsen declined to release data for the two cities, saying that ratings at that granular level are proprietary.